Pros
The students and families as well as some of the program staff. I left the organization having built various strong relationships.
Cons
There were an incredible amount of cons to working at Harmony Project which is why I cannot recommend anyone work here. There is an extremely toxic culture and directors are the ones who feed into it. While I worked there, I felt like there were huge demands put on my plate and very little support was offered to meet these demands. I learned through my time there however that it was actually better to not have any support from leadership because as soon as they got involved your workload would become even more unmanageable as they lacked the ability to give constructive feedback so to save face they would nitpick everything and create more work for you while leaving your original concerns unaddressed. Additionally, when it came to accountability the leadership team are professional dodgers. Event debriefs lacked structure and when led by leadership often led to finger pointing or sweeping things under the rug. As a junior employee I was often in the position of trying to model better project management practices to my directors. Efforts which they often disrupted by talking over me and derailing agenda talking points by talking about their personal lives or other trivial unrelated matters. Directors also often implemented a sweet/sour routine on staff. One moment the would be rude to you and the next they would try to make you feel special. For example, during one of my College Team meetings, a director called me “prickly.” I was extremely uncomfortable and although there were 2 other directors there present, this comment was ignored. However, at the next meeting the same director once again brought attention to me during a team meeting claiming she and I were close friends that did things together on the weekends. It was weird but this was one of their manipulation tactics so if I were to speak up about her comments towards me, the rest of the staff would be in disbelief because she was “nice” to me in that meeting. I am also not the only one to experience these things. Many staff members have been subject to this discomfort. Finally and most importantly, please read everything that has been said about the racism and mistreatment of Black staff and other POC. There is no exaggeration in those reviews and if anything they leave a lot out. Very very racist work place and I really recommend you do not work here.